Points on Creativity and Success

[Annie]

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000876.html

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the biz card format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn't I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?

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2. Creativity is its own reward.

You never really reach your goals. By the time you get near to fulfilling them your criteria has already changed. Which is why by the time the world recognizes your genius, it won't seem very real.

3. Put the hours in.

Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what seperates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina.

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4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I’d like my crayons back, please."

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7. Keep your day job.

I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e. because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol' creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory”.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

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9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

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10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

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11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.

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12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure.

(I like this thread. I'll keep re-editing it as my thoughts mutate... but feel free to suggest possible additions in the comment section etc.)

 

[waltky]

Brain scans show link between emotions, creativity...

Study: Emotions, Creativity Tightly Linked
January 04, 2016 - Music can evoke all sorts of emotions in listeners' hearts, and in composers' minds.

Brain-scanning studies of artists being creative - improvising music, rapping or drawing caricatures - showed deactivation in a part of the brain involved in planning and monitoring behavior. Researchers say this is a sign of the "flow state" that frees up creative impulses.

A new study of jazz pianists shows a greater deactivation in that region when they are working on melodies to convey a happy emotion, rather than expressing a sad or negative emotion.

Eric Soriano listens to music with a pair of Beats headphones.​

Improvising somber music activates the brain's reward regions, which reinforce behaviors that lead to pleasurable outcomes. That could mean "that people are getting into more of a 'groove,'" according to Malinda McPherson, who led the study. "This indicates there may be different mechanisms for why it's pleasurable to create happy versus sad music." "The bottom line is that emotion matters," says senior author Charles Limb. The study of the neural intricacies of creativity was published in Scientific Reports.

Study: Emotions, Creativity Tightly Linked